A hunger-fighting charity is challenging people to live on $1.50 a day for five days. My girlfriend dove in, so I followed. Despite having a refrigerator full of perfectly good food.

Live Below the Line proclaims, "By living off just $1.50 per day for food for 5 days, you will be bringing to life the direct experiences of the 1.4 billion people currently living in extreme poverty. ... "

I planned to use my wits. I would pluck sustenance from urban fruit and nut trees. Mooch free samples at Costco. If need be, shuffle into a soup kitchen. I'd never go hungry.

But such evasions are against the rules. The organizers don't want you to outwit hunger; they want you to experience it. And chafe in the straightjacket of poverty.

When you live on $1.50 a day, "You realize truly what a challenge it is to live on that income," said Justine Lucas, campaign manager for the United States.

A farmers market would have been a good place to stretch dollars on nutritious food. None was open. Joy and I retreated to a dollar store. We pooled our $7.50s into a mighty $15.

Still, we quickly learned it is very difficult to feed yourself on $1.50 a day. Heck, one Coke in the soda machine at work costs $1.50. We were forced to reject one food product after another.

Other dollar items, though cheap, are just too weird. Chicken of the Sea tuna with brown rice, baby corn and water chestnuts, in a pineapple sauce? What is that? Cafeteria food on Jupiter?

Finally we settled on a 1-pound bag of pasta; a loaf of white bread (we split the slices); a packet of extra-thin-sliced ham; a couple sizes of instant ramen noodles; several other small items.

Joy also factored in a bunch of 11-cent bananas she bought at Walmart the day before.

By brunch the next day, I was hungry. So I microwaved the large ramen, called Big Cup Noodles. I fished out every last noodle. I gulped the salty broth. Tastewise, not Zagat rated.

Joy boiled a smaller ramen packet. "For 19 cents, it's not too bad," she reported. And I have $1.31 left to spend. I'm rollin' in it! Woo hoo!"

Ramen is synonymous with tolerably nutritious budget dining.

In reality, it is "nutritionally horrendous," according to one food website.

Manufacturers create dried noodles with long shelf life by deep-frying them in oil, which is fat. They revive the taste with MSG and a host of other mystery ingredients.

Great. I washed down these reconstituted noodle mummies by slurping tap water.

That night I longingly drove home past bars at which I socialize, restaurants at which I eat, stores at which I buy food, and Baskin-Robbins. No Chocolate Mousse Royale for the boyfriend of Ms. Socially Conscious. Instead I ate at home.

A drab, unfilling ham sandwich.

Ingredients: dry white bread, two slices of absurdly thin ham, a dollop of mustard. Period. My budget could not afford cheese, or lettuce. Dessert was a kid's portion of applesauce.

This, I imagine, is the malbouffe French people are served in Hell. Garcon, another bland sandwich for Pierre, the murderer! Vite! Vite!

And whenever I ate, I was still hungry. The portions weren't filling enough. My spoiled-rotten belly devilled me all day with a keening pang of hunger.

I fended it off with glasses of tap water.

With exquisite timing, Joy's girlfriend called and offered to buy her dinner and drinks at a Greek restaurant. Ha! Instead, Joy dined at home on pasta in butter. She couldn't afford meat sauce.

"I had to go to bed early," she said. "I kept thinking about the succulent food at Papapavlo's and the wonderful White Russians I could have had."

The next morning, I was surprised to find that I was less hungry than on Day One. Stomachs can be tamed. For me, the tedium of such a diet would kill me long before malnutrition.

Joy had a different experience. Hunger gave her an unrelenting headache. To top it off, she had to attend a lunch meeting; her boss commented she seemed lethargic, unfocused.

"I watched these boneheads eat, and I sat there and drank water," she railed. "I've basically had a banana today. And I'm so hungry!"

I recommend trying the challenge, if only for a day. I'm not claiming you truly experience hunger. It's more like hunger tourism. But there's a saying about tourism, "The less money you put into a country, the more you get out of it." The same can be true of food.